Canada’s scandal pot continues to boil

After a couple of days off to take in the final of the Memorial Cup junior hockey tournament, Canada’s scandal scene has heated up.

Right off the bat, another wacky scenario involving Toronto’s embattled mayor, Rob Ford, has hit the internet.

A new story has popped up that says one of the people pictured smoking crack in that now-famous video of the mayor and his “pals” was a murder victim with ties to the mayor. This comes only one day after Mayor Ford declared outright that the video “doesn’t exist” and that he is not “addicted” to crack cocaine.

The murder tie-in comes from the Globe and Mail newspaper, which released the story early on Monday, May 27th. Head to their web page for all the fun details. Simply enter a search for The Globe and Mail.

Then there’s the continuing Canadian Senate affair, wherein a pair of senators have been accused of being even more ready, willing and able to grab from the public purse than their Senate colleagues.

Remember, being a Canadian senator is one of the best sinecures imaginable. Once you’re in, you’re in — for life — with a good salary, a bucketful of benefits, glorious expense accounts, and no-one to answer to. No voters to appease, no bosses to please, nothing to do but sit back and cash cheques, legal or otherwise.

Thing is, the two main people behind this recent blow-up are both former television journalists. Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy both used to chase down politicians and demand answers. Now both are being chased and neither one is answering. Maybe they spent too much time around all that high powered broadcast equipment and their connections to the mother ship were somehow scrambled. Who knows?

Then of course there’s the spy stuff. Seems this navy guy sold Canadian secrets to the Russians. That story was old news months ago, but now it seems the good ol’ RCMP knew all about this guy’s goings-on and didn’t do anything about it. For months and months.

Oh, that lovely scandal pot. How fun it is to watch it simmer and bubble.

As for the Memorial Cup, the Halifax (Nova Scotia) Mooseheads beat out the Portland (Oregon) Winterhawks for the top prize. And, after much moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth in the Saskaton area, (see map) the host city managed to end the tournament with an average per-game attendance of more than 9, 167, which apparently ranks fifth in Memorial Cup history. Earlier this month many were saying the tournament was a bust and attendance would be meagre. Guess they were wrong.